Crate Motor Class

[Michael Beard]

Originally Posted by Todd Hoven

What is the highest HP rated crate Motor available for class? What's the fastest a crate car has run in IHRA et wise?

Crate Motor spec sheets:
http://www.ihra.com/competition/comp...t/category/211

Ford CM Engines
● 460 / 535 @ 515
● 514 / 600 @ 520

Last I could find on some other combos:
Chevy 502/502 was rated at 443
500 / 445 Mopar (Wedge) at 443

Outside of Top Stock, the big HP combinations were few and far between. Most crate motor guys ran small blocks. I know Terry Taylor went 9.60's in A/CM many years ago. I'm sure Nitro Joe has the stats from back in the day. When IHRA did away with record points, class runoffs, etc people quit caring about performance as much.


FYI, my old 360 Magnum crate motor was rated at 325. Add aluminum heads with bigger valves, more cam, almost 2 points more compression, and a 1000cfm throttle body and you have a 5.9L DragPak, rated by NHRA in its infinite wisdom at 275HP. LOL

My advice to Crate Motor Racers is, "be careful what you wish for." You might see your combo hit harder than you ever thought possible. It'd be cheaper to build a stocker combo, than to try and keep up with some of the "wallets" in stock eliminator. It's not gonna be Easier or Cheaper to run a Crate Motor Combo...Guaranteed !

Depends on if you want to keep up with the Jones's or not. You can do things kinda-sorta affordable if you don't care about going fast. I built the 5.9L DragPak for Super Stock GT on a budget, and it paid for itself pretty quickly. I had less in my Super Stock car than most people have in their Stockers. One guy flat out told me I was lying when I told him how much I had in it. The car may have been slow, but it won both a National and a Divisional. The only thing that cost much more than a good crate motor was the EFI computer and fuel system.